How to Get Through a GI Flare | A Plan That Works
If you live with a digestive condition like Crohn’s Disease, Ulcerative Colitis, IBS, or any other chronic GI condition, then you already know: flares are not just physical. They touch every aspect of our lives - what we eat, how we sleep, work, and how we relate to others and ourselves.
As someone who lives with Crohn’s Disease myself, I know firsthand how hard these flares can be both physically and emotionally. In my clinical work as a psychologist, I’ve helped many people navigate life when it feels like the bottom has dropped out and they’re facing intense uncertainty.
While we can’t fully prevent flares of symptoms from happening, what we can do is equip ourselves with something that makes an enormous difference:
A Flare Recovery Plan
Think of it like a life raft. You don’t wait until you’re in the water to start building it. It’s something already prepared, simple, and actionable—ready to carry you when symptoms flare and anxiety floods in.
During a recent symptom flare, I was very grateful for the structured support of my personal Flare Recovery Plan. It’s a comprehensive tool I've developed over years of professional practice and personal experience. This plan has become my anchor during turbulent digestive episodes, providing clarity when brain fog sets in and confidence when uncertainty looms.
In this post, I’ll walk you through the key pillars of my own Flare Recovery Plan, explain how it helps, and offer steps to create one of your own.
You can find the podcast version of this blog post here…
Why Make a Flare Recovery Plan
The Purpose Behind the Plan
When you’re in a flare, it’s hard to think clearly. You’re hurting, exhausted, and discouraged. The stress of not knowing how long it will last, or how bad it might get, can lead to panic and desperate decisions. That’s not the time to start searching for solutions.
Your nervous system can easily go into high-alert survival mode.
“What did I eat that caused this?”
“How bad is this going to get?”
“Will I need to cancel work, cancel plans?”
“What if this flare doesn’t go away?”
This physiological stress response can hijack your thinking in two very predictable ways:
1| Hyper-Control Mode
Some of us go into overdrive & hypervigilance. We start obsessively researching symptoms, supplements, and medications. We analyze every food choice. We may even create elaborate theories about what triggered our symptoms all in an effort to regain a sense of control. This often fuels anxiety and decision paralysis.
2 |Shutdown Mode
Others may shut down & collapse inward. We might feel helpless, hopeless, or cynical. Our thoughts become more self-defeating “Nothing ever helps anyway” and we start to check out. That internal shutdown makes it hard to take care of ourselves and contribute to a sense of being a victim.
Both modes impair our ability to think clearly when it matters most. Even simple decisions, like what to eat can feel overwhelming, and the stress of trying to make the “right” call can drain energy we don’t have to spare. That’s where a Flare Recovery Plan comes in.
It’s a personalized protocol, crafted ahead of time during clearer moments and designed to guide you when that fog rolls in. It functions as a decision support system, giving you structure, calm, and direction during a time that would otherwise feel chaotic and reactive.
One of the biggest benefits is simple: You know you have it.
When symptoms hit, you don’t have to panic or scramble. You have a plan you trust. That alone can create a sense of steadiness and relief in the middle of everything else.
A good plan also helps you avoid making things worse.
When we’re desperate for relief, it’s easy to make reactive choices that backfire like pushing too hard, restricting too much, trying every random supplement.
It also helps make social support easier.
If you share a household with others, having a documented plan can clarify your needs. Whether it’s adjusted boundaries, help with meals, or emotional space, a written plan lets partners, family members, or roommates support you without having to figure it out mid-flare.
What Is a Flare Recovery Plan?
A Flare Recovery Plan is a written guide that outlines what to do when you’re in a flare. It helps you think ahead, set yourself up for healing, and reduce unnecessary suffering. It’s not about controlling everything, it’s about creating a softer place to land when things get hard.
This is not a one-size-fits-all protocol but a personal guide tailored to your life and what works for you. I’ll share the details of my personal flare recovery plan below but this is just an example, a template you can use if you decide to create one of your own.
My flare recovery plan begins with mindset. I’ve found it makes sense to start here because all the changes that follow in the four different pillars ultimately root back to this change in mindset.
A Shift in Mindset
When we resist acknowledging flares, we often push through symptoms and try to maintain our normal daily lives which can potentially worsen our condition. What’s crucial is developing the emotional maturity to accept and acknowledge a flare when it’s here so you can get out of your own way. This is an important shift in mindset.
This is the straight forward message I have to myself in my plan.
I’m in a flare.
This means I need to approach things differently.
My new top priority is creating a better healing environment for myself.
Clear & simple.
This acknowledgment and shift in mindset is key. It serves as permission to implement your recovery protocol and adjust expectations accordingly. It represents a significant shift away from your daily norm and into a mode of slowing down, tuning in, and creating an environment where your body can recover.
The Four Pillars
After years of refinement, I've organized my plan around four essential domains that need adjustment during flares:
Lifestyle Adjustments
Diet Changes
Meds, Supplements & Herbs
Mind-Body Tools
1 | Lifestyle Adjustments
Clear Boundaries & Compassionate Permissions
This section of my plan gives me rules and permissions regarding my lifestyle - that is, my daily habits and routines. For me I focus on how I approach the following:
sleep
movement & exercise
work
socializing & supportive relationships
information diet
spirituality
The aim is to make this an easy-to-follow guide that doesn’t require much thinking when you need to pull it out so I opt for simple bullet points.
Hard Rules & Temporary Restrictions
Hard rules & restrictions might sound strict, but trust me, when you're in a flare, clarity is a gift.
Here are some examples from my plan:
Limit work by not taking on new clients (even if my schedule opens up)
At least 1 rest/active recovery session for 20 min or more (see Mind-Body Tools below for details on this)
Reschedule non-essential appointments
No news consumption beyond one 15-min morning update
No doom scrolling or reading anxiety-provoking news
No social media after 8 PM
No late nights (in bed by 9:30 PM)
Compassionate Permissions
It’s okay to reply to emails more slowly
It’s okay to let the house get messier than usual
It’s okay to cancel or reschedule commitments without guilt
It’s okay to let emails accumulate beyond my comfort level
It’s okay to respond to messages less frequently or in less depth
It’s okay to adjust exercise expectations (walks & yoga are enough for now)
It’s a good idea to speak up to [my wife] what feels hard right now & check in with myself about any needs or wants I might be holding back from expressing
The beauty of this section lies in its clarity, it removes the burden of decision-making while you’re dealing with distressing symptoms. By pre-deciding these parameters during a calmer state, you eliminate decision fatigue and the tendency to over-analyze when your resources are limited.
Your lifestyle changes should reflect your particular vulnerabilities. As you can see from my examples I’m someone who can struggle with over-working and over-extending. When flares come on, if I’m caught in reactive mode, I can default into an unhelpful attempt to power through. This has bitten me countless times. It’s the perennial lesson that comes with flares for me, my growth edge.
Take stock of what your vulnerabilities & unhelpful patterns might be. If you’re someone who tends to isolate during flares, your permissions might include
"Reach out to a support person daily, even if I feel anxious about being a burden”
If you tend toward trying to power through and push your physical limits, your rules and permissions might emphasize some hard rules enforcing daily rest and active recovery.
These simple boundaries help me to get clear on the factors that I can control and can ease the anxiety & overwhelm. I can’t tell you how many times my personal rule for requiring daily rest and active recovery through relaxation practices has saved me from overextending myself, from the compulsion to maintain "normal" productivity and making my flare worse.
2 | Diet Changes
Simplifying Diet Choices
For most of us with a GI condition, food becomes a huge source of stress during a flare. You’re likely trying to figure out what caused the symptoms, what’s safe to eat, and how to nourish yourself with a system in distress.
This pillar of the plan is about simplifying that process. It’s not about rigid food rules, it’s about creating guidelines that keep you from getting overwhelmed and resorting to all or nothing approaches. This is also highly individual to you and the GI condition you have. For example the FODMAPS diet might be really helpful for one person, whereas an elimination diet or even fasting might be helpful for another.
If you’re feeling lost, start by exploring evidence-based recommendations for diet based on your GI condition. It’s also helpful to note that you can easily find contradictory information on the internet and that there are lots of common mistakes people often make in this area so the help of a GI dietician can be quite important here.
With that said, I’ll share some examples of what is in my personal plan.
What to Eat Less Of
These are foods that I’m temporarily reducing or eliminating.
Processed food
High sugar food
Raw vegetables
Grains
Reduce caffeine (coffee —> tea)
Nuts
I also cut back on the normal heavier duty fiber supplements I normally take.
What to Eat More Of
These are foods that are my safety net that I know I can count on as a stable base during a flare. It’s important for me though to not overly restrict myself to just these foods.
For me the list includes
Bone broth
Peeled & cooked veggies, especially…
Squash
Zucchini
Spinach
Asparagus
Carrot
Garlic
Green Beans
Mushroom
Peppers
Peeled fruit (especially banana)
Baked or sautéed meat
Eggs
Soups
A huge help for me over the years has been working off the phases of the Specific Carbohydrate Diet as a baseline, then tailoring it to fit my needs. This list also fluctuates based on how bad my symptoms are.
I’ll work more specifically with the phases of the SCD if the flare is bad or prolonged. When I get to that place of severe symptoms or really prolonged symptoms I’ve often simplified down some meals into what I lovingly call “gruel”. This is a recipe where I make a bulk batch of easy to digest cooked food by sauteing and then blending squash, carrot, zucchini & green beans. Throw on some salt, and you’ve got a big batch of pre-made meals ready to go.
This might sound gross to some but if your GI issues have gotten bad enough for you I’m sure you understand how, at a certain point, food takes on a new function. Rather than tasting good, it becomes about choosing the best fuel to help your body heal without making things worse.
How to Eat Differently
Beyond food choices, HOW you eat can also impact digestion. My personal plan emphasizes the following:
Mindful Eating Practices
You don’t need to be skilled at meditation and mindfulness in order to make useful changes. Just slowing down and eating with more awareness and fewer distractions can make a difference. One simple but powerful tip is to put the utensil down between bites. Sounds simple, but it’s a good challenge.
Intentionally Slowing Down Before Meals
Taking a pause with three slow breaths before eating to shift the nervous system from gas (sympathetic / "fight-or-flight") to brake (parasympathetic / “rest-and-digest").
Intuitive Eating
Intuitive eating is about checking in with actual hunger cues and specific food cravings, which sometimes contain wisdom about what our bodies need. Eat when you’re hungry, pause when you’re not, and pay attention to what actually sounds tasty. This can help support the need to diversify foods and avoid sticking to a diet that is too limited.
The goal of this pillar of the plan isn't creating the "perfect" diet, but rather having a simple, ready-to-go framework that makes things easier for yourself.
3 | Meds, Supplements & Herbs
Have Your Symptom-Specific Toolkit Ready
This section lists all the medications, supplements, and herbs I’ve found helpful over time, organized by symptom for easy reference.
When you’re in a flare, you don’t want to try to remember which medication or supplement helped you six months ago. Having this list written down prevents overthinking and helps avoid missing something obvious.
My most common symptoms from Crohn’s Disease (and associated inflammatory arthritis) are diarrhea, fatigue, gas, insomnia and joint pain. For each of these anticipated symptoms, I list all the medications, supplements and herbs that are helpful. While I’m at it, I also like to include my daily preventive regimen so I have it handy for medical appointments.
4 | Mind-Body Tools
Regulating Stress & Activating Your Body’s Healing Response
This pillar is the most interesting part of the plan for me. Changes to diet, meds & supplements can be pretty obvious. What’s much less obvious to most people with a GI condition is that practical, effective mind-body tools can be incredibly helpful during a flare. This is where GI psychology really shines and why I started this website.
The mind-body connection in digestive health is not merely psychological. We know from research that the nervous system and digestive system are tightly interconnected via the gut-brain axis. When this connection is dysregulated it can directly impact and worsen many symptom factors including motility, pain and inflammation.
The practices in this section help to guide us to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest”). Using these tools to ground, regulate and turn down the stress response can be highly supportive for healing and symptom relief.
There are two types of mind-body tools I focus on.
1 | Tools to Activate the Parasympathetic Nervous System
2 | Tools to Work with Stress & Difficult Emotions
Parasympathetic Activation Techniques
These practices can stimulate the vagus nerve, calm the system and upregulate at the level of the nervous system. This is not a comprehensive list, but instead some of the main tools that I personally have found are most helpful for me. The following are tools that are high priority for me to use and are essential in my “hard rules” in the Lifestyle Adjustments pillar above.
Slow Diaphragmatic Breathing
Likely the most highly used intervention used within GI psychology because it’s simple and effective for so many GI conditions. You can find lots more info about this tool on the Rest & Digest podcast
Meditation
This is a core practice for me whether I’m in a flare or not so I personally lean more heavily into the wonderfully helpful practice. If you’d like to explore this tool further, you can read more about mindfulness for GI conditions here.
Guided Relaxation Recordings
Research on practices that best induce the relaxation response highlights a number of effective options. One go-to technique you can easily find recordings for is progressive muscle relaxation. In addition, non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) and yoga nidra are worth exploring. The Insight Timer app is a good source for quality recordings.
Chill & Rest Strategies
Finally, this part includes ways to slow down, unwind and access a sense of safety. This might include an epsom salt bath, listening to specific music with headphones on your favorite couch or chair, reading something light while laying in the sun, or cuddling with your pet. It’s helpful to know what your personal “rest and digest” signature is for your nervous system.
For me this list includes a dip in the hot tub, reading a science fiction or techno-thriller book, or laying on the couch away from my phone with my earbuds in, listening to some songs by Essie Jain.
Emotional Regulation Strategies
These tools help manage the anxiety, frustration, and catastrophizing that often accompany digestive symptoms. Ignoring and burying feelings doesn’t make them go away, they just fester. It really is true, when it comes to emotions, what we resist persists.
There are many, many effective tools and it’s a personal thing to find what works best for us. I’ll share two approaches that work well for me and for most of the clients that I work with.
RAIN
This is a mindfulness-based process that helps build self-awareness and also guides you to work through emotions. It’s best done with paper and pen.
R - Recognize
This sounds quite simple, but in reality when we’re stressed or hijacked by anxiety, we either don’t quite recognize it, or if we do, we often don’t want to acknowledge it in the moment. We’re often too busy trying to control, fix or distract ourselves.
It can be quite powerful to build the emotional maturity to recognize and acknowledge what you’re feeling in the moment. There are 5 basic emotions - mad, glad, sad, afraid and ashamed. On average, the most common emotion that comes with a symptom flare is afraid/anxious so we’ll use that example.
A simple way to do this step is to recognize the feeling. In this instance it would to to write down the sentence or say to yourself in your head - Right now, I’m feeling scared.
Then follow this with a sentence stem by writing “I’m scared that…”. Just capture what comes out.
A - Allow
Allow the feeling to be present in your body without pushing it away. There’s a lot more to say about this step, but we’ll keep it simple. This feeling is here whether you like it or not. Emotions are not chosen, they are experienced. The only thing harder than allowing and working with an emotion is resisting and working against it.
Allowing and acceptance are profound skills. It’s important to note this in no way is resigning or giving up. It’s simply allowing the emotion to do its thing, to be processed.
I - Investigate
This step is going back to the curiosity starting in the R step. We drop judgement about what we should or shouldn’t be thinking and instead ask:
What is my mind thinking?
What is the story I’m being told inside?
Often these stories and thoughts capture us into a virtual reality that’s quite distorted from actual reality. Therapists call this type of thinking cognitive distortions.
Anytime you notice your thoughts are using all-or-nothing language like “always” or “never”, you’re very likely caught in some distorted thinking. The beauty of this is that simply being aware of our thinking patterns is enough to start to untangle them.
N - Nurture
Finally, this sets the stage for self-soothing or self-compassion. When we’re in flares, it’s understandable to be stressed and dysregulated. What we’re needing at times like these often is some warmth and kindness to help regulate. The question of “When I feel like this, what am I needing?” can lead to recognizing your personal need for reassurance, such as:
“I’ve been through this before.
It’s very normal for me to get quite scared & think catastrophic thoughts.
Just because I’m feeling this way doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.
In reality, these flares almost always resolve after 4-5 days.
This is hard, and this will get better. Hang in there.”
Again, there are many tools and options. Some focus more on the body first (somatic, bottom-up regulation tools) and others focus more on the thoughts (cognitive, top-down regulation tools). Either way, emotional regulation is physiological regulation. They go hand-in-hand.
Conclusion
The mere act of creating this plan has helped me shift my relationship with my digestive disorder from feeling helpless and anxious to feeling much more proactive and prepared. My flare recovery plan is a living document and I continue to refine it as I learn more about my body and as I try new diets, meds, supplements, herbs and tools.
Start Your Own Flare Recovery Plan
If you’re ready to start building your own plan, here are some simple steps to get started.
1. Get a notebook or create a document
Make space for each of these sections:
Change in Mindset
Lifestyle Adjustments
Diet Changes
Meds, Supplements & Herbs
Mind-Body Tools
2. Fill in Simple, Personalized Bullet Points
Start simple, even with just a few items in each category. Keep it short and clear. Include reminders you know help but are easy to forget when you're stressed.
3. Include Rules & Permissions
Give yourself both boundaries and self-compassion.
4. Keep It Visible & Accessible
Don’t hide this plan in a random folder. Print it. Post it. Make it a note on your phone. Make it something you can turn to with ease.
Remember that your Flare Recovery Plan is a living document, evolving as you gain insights about your condition and personal stress patterns.
If you know someone else who also struggles with a GI condition and might benefit from this information, please consider sharing it with them.
Feel free to leave a comment below or send me a message if you have any questions or suggestions.